Archive for ACME STAR LILY

Coming off what might have been one of the greatest World Dairy Expo’s of All-Time (Read –World Dairy Expo 2012 Holstein Show – A Battle For The Ages), there seems to be great debate about how some cows stack up in the All-Time rankings. To help determine how we would rank the greatest North American Holstein show cows of all time, we looked at their head to head match ups as well as overall accomplishments and dominance in their era and developed the following list:

Reasons: Both Paradise (Madison) and Frantisco (Royal) were only able to win twice in their home country at a time when the border was closed. But Frantisco does win the battle when it comes to total All-American or All-Canadian awards so she wins this close battle.

Reasons: No comparison. Charity was never defeated in her class and 8 times was Grand at Madison or the Royal. She was incredible perfection!

The Bullvine Bottom Line

While I am sure you can debate which cows were actually better than others, the only way to fairly compare them is to look at how they did head to head in their prime. If that was not possible as the cows are from different eras then you have to then look at total accomplishments. The one thing for sure is that Brookview Tony Charity’s accomplishments are by far the greatest of all time and may never be equaled again.

We see these huge sales prices for great show cows all the time. We recently saw RAINYRIDGE TALENT BARBARA EX-95 sell for $230,000 or Eastside Lewisdale Gold Missy EX-95-CAN selling in 2009 for $1.2 million . They only way to support sales prices like that are to breed great cattle from these cattle. With that, we decided to take a closer look at how some of the great show cows from the past have done.

In our article Show Cows: All Type and NO Action?, we look at the pedigree of the current crop of show cattle. In this article we are going to look at how some of the great show cows of the past 20 years have done on the breeding side of the equation.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

These five cattle are excellent examples of great show cattle that were able to pass it on. In contrast, however, there is the great ACME STAR LILY EX-94-4YR-USA 8*, who despite being a 3 time grand champion at the Royal and probably one of the greatest show cows of all time, has been unable to pass that legacy on. Others who have had this challenge include LAUDUC BROKER MANDY EX-96-4E-USA 5*, who despite have a great daughter- LAUDUC ASTRE MANILLE EX-CAN 6* (ALL-CANADIAN SR.2-YR 1997) – was also unable to pass it on through her sons. This just goes to show that just because a cow may be the greatest show cow walking the planet at that moment, it does not guarantee that she will be able to pass it on.